The Sugarless Plum: A Memoir

by Zippora Karz

  A few weeks later, I was rehearsing a corps de ballet role in yet another of Jerry’s ballets, In G Major, when, as I was coming down from a jump, I lost focus for a split second. My foot twisted. I limped away. It turned out that I had broken my metatarsal and sprained my ankle. That put an end to my spring season, and I flew home to Los Angeles with my foot in a cast.

  I was home for three months and gave myself permission to relax. I went to fraternity parties with my older sister, Michele, and her friends, got drunk and actually went on a few dates. It was a relief to be a normal twenty-year-old, to be around people who knew nothing about executing a perfect tendu, and who hadn’t even heard of Jerry Robbins.

  It was also the perfect time to heal the grief I’d been feeling ever since Joe’s death, and to reflect on the feelings of rejection Jerry had triggered in me.

  My aunt Rhonda had become a trainer for a program called the Loving Relationships Training, which, like many such programs in the eighties, focused on the notion that our thoughts create our reality, and that by becoming aware of our unconscious thoughts and changing them, we can change our reality. My mom and I took the course together, and it turned out to be an opportunity for us to heal some of our issues—specifically what had happened with Dave—and a powerful bonding experience for the two of us.

  Taking those seminars taught me how much my sense of self-worth was directly related to whether or not Jerry and Peter were pleased with me. I realized I had a lot to work on. For my mother, the whole experience was so liberating that she decided to enroll in a six-month course that met weekly in New York. And so, at the end of the summer, she joined Romy and me in the city.

  TWENTY

  Back in New York City in late summer, I’d recovered from my injury and was using the time before rehearsals for the winter season began to get myself back in shape for dancing. I was spending a lot of time taking yoga classes at the White Cloud Studio. Julio Horvath, the owner, was just developing a new system he called Gyrotonics, which was designed to elongate and strengthen the muscles. Julio, born in Hungary, had dark hair and fire in his eyes and had once been a dancer himself. Now he was inspired by those of us from City Ballet, whose strong, flexible, athletic bodies allowed us to do extraordinary things.

  I’d been dragged to Julio’s studio by Sabrina, a beautiful long-legged dancer who came from Texas, and when I saw how much Julio’s techniques were helping my dancing, I dragged Romy and Stacey there, too. Soon there was a big group of New York City Ballet dancers breathing, making grunting noises and putting our bodies in all kinds of contortionist positions as we worked with Julio.

  Even though my ankle injury had healed, when I danced too much it still bothered me, so when someone from the yoga studio organized a group to consult a medicine man from the Philippines who called himself a psychic surgeon, I was happy to go along. At least a hundred people, including Romy, Stacey, Sabrina and I, showed up to get miraculously “healed.” When my name was called, I entered a room furnished with a massage table and smelling of rubbing alcohol. A sweet-looking Philippine woman stood next to a small table that held a dishpan of water and cloths. She handed me a robe and asked me to put it on. Then she motioned to the healer, who had been standing close by. He couldn’t have been over forty and was about my height, with dark hair and a twinkle in his eye. Now he motioned for me to lie down on the massage table.

  As I lay on my back, the woman sprinkled the rubbing alcohol on my stomach. The medicine man put his fingertips on my torso and started moving them quickly, as if he were digging in the sand. He clasped one hand tight, appearing to grab something from inside my body, which he then lifted in the air and dangled in my face. It looked like a raw chicken liver or some kind of intestines. Then he went back for “more.” He continued this process, working on different parts of my body—my hips, knees and my ankle. As he was digging, I felt a tiny pull, but that was about all.

  Each time he supposedly pulled something out of me, he dangled it in my face and laughed. “You see,” he said. “You see.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was for real or not, and I was trying to figure out how he did it. Maybe the little chicken-liver-like things had been in his hand before he started digging. I tried to watch his every move to see if I could catch him. It struck me that he was way too showy, and I wondered if he were a scam artist. Then suddenly his face turned serious and his eyes pierced into mine. “You need to see me more,” he said.

  “Why?” I asked. His sudden change of manner made me curious.

  “There is a problem in your blood,” he answered.

  I looked at him. He seemed genuinely concerned. Momentarily chilled, I quickly dismissed what he’d said and forgot all about it until I was diagnosed with diabetes about four months later.

  As rehearsals began, the word was that Peter Martins was choreographing a new ballet to premiere toward the end of February. I would have loved just to be in the corps of Peter’s new ballet, but I had no idea when—if ever—he would want to work with me again. He hadn’t seen me dance since my injury, and it was possible that he didn’t even know I was back.

  Each night, I checked the rehearsal schedule for the next day, and finally, there was my name, listed with Peter Boal’s for a rehearsal with Peter Martins for his new ballet. I’d been chosen to dance a lead. I was thrilled. I couldn’t believe it.

  The new piece, Les Petits Riens, would be choreographed for eight young corps de ballet members: four women and four men. Each couple would dance a pas de deux and each dancer would have a solo.

  To have Peter Martins create a role for me was yet another dream come true. It’s both a tribute and a challenge: a tribute in the sense that you’ve been chosen because the choreographer is inspired by something about you, and a challenge because even though choreographers make use of their dancers’ strengths, they also like to push their dancers to confront their weaknesses. Balanchine was known to push dancers all the time. Once he even went so far as to have created a ballet that consisted almost entirely of jumps for a dancer he liked who had difficulty jumping. Peter, who was most inspired by athleticism, also loved to challenge dancers. His choreography could look extremely simple, but when done right it took incredible strength and control. Knowing this, I was worried that, even though I was back from my injury, I wouldn’t be strong enough to do what he required.

  The first day of rehearsal, Peter, looking godlike as usual in his white jeans and white sneakers, listened to the pianist play the first chords over and over, while he looked at me standing next to him, as if he were thinking, “Hmm, what is her body telling me I should do with her?” One of the steps I still had problems executing consistently was a really clean, perfect turn. So what did Peter do? He gave me a turn that required absolutely perfect balance.

  Whenever Peter taught or rehearsed us, he demonstrated with perfect technique. Now he took a fifth position and did a pirouette, which is a turn on one leg with the other leg bent and its foot placed just under the knee. As he finished the pirouette, he did something absolutely amazing. Usually, when you finish a turn, both feet return to the ground, which is what stops your momentum. Now, instead of putting his bent leg on the floor, he opened it to the side and somehow stopped the turn while still standing on demi pointe on one foot. Finally, he lowered the raised leg and placed it, still in the air, near the back of the standing ankle. He did all of this slowly and with perfect control. Then he looked at me, indicating that I was to do the same thing, but on pointe. I didn’t think, I just went for it, and as beginner’s luck would have it, it worked.

  I think we were both surprised. So Peter, excited by how well I had done it, decided to have me do it a second time—two of those incredibly difficult turns right at the beginning of my solo. What had I got myself into? How on earth would I re-create that step perfectly at each rehearsal, let alone at every performance?

  In addition to preparing for Les Petits I was rehearsing all my other corps parts every day and performing every
night. There simply wasn’t any time to pay attention to what my body was trying to tell me. I don’t know when the constant thirst, the frequent trips to the bathroom, the burning hunger and the spaced-out feeling had started, but I attributed my symptoms to being stressed and tired and ignored them all. If it hadn’t been for the painful sores under my arms, I don’t know if I ever would have gone to the doctor.

  The week of the premiere we had orchestra and costume rehearsals for Petits. My physical problems seemed small compared to my nerves, and I willed myself to focus and stay centered so that I could nail my difficult steps. In one dress rehearsal I kept falling off pointe. All I had to do was hold an arabesque while Peter Boal walked around me as he held my waist and I held his shoulder. It was one of the easiest steps in our dance and shouldn’t have been a problem, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stay on pointe. I was furious with my body for screwing up at this crucial time, and I couldn’t figure out what the problem was; nerves was not a valid excuse.

  I could see Peter Martins growing more and more tense as he watched me mess it up. Any new work is of vital importance to its choreographer, and this was especially true for Peter, who, as the new director, had the entire ballet world watching him. Now, as he looked at me, he frowned and turned to Susie Hendl, the ballet mistress who had been rehearsing me for the part—the same Susie Hendl who had auditioned me and given me the scholarship to SAB. “What’s wrong with her, Susie?” he asked. “Why can’t she do it?”

  I vowed that I wasn’t going to let my body rob me of this great experience. I knew how to perform. I would muster up whatever I needed to get through all six performances of Les Petit Riens. In the end, I didn’t think I was all that great, but I did manage to dance well. Except for the moment when I saw Jerry walking away from the wing during my solo, I was happy to be on the stage.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Once the performances of Les Petits Riens were over and I’d gone back to dancing my regular corps roles, I had expected that I would start to feel better. But I was wrong.

  Once I had a diagnosis, as much as I was in denial about my illness, I couldn’t deny that there was something seriously wrong with me and that I could not continue to perform feeling the way I did.

  With only two weeks left of the season I’d told Rosemary that I could not dance. I didn’t want to be in New York anymore. I didn’t want to know about the performances I would be missing; I didn’t want to have to explain myself to anyone. If I couldn’t be part of that world, I just wanted to be as far away from it as possible. But I couldn’t leave immediately. I’d have to go back to the theater at least one more time to clear my things out of the dressing room we’d be vacating until our spring season began so that the City Opera could move in.

  And I also had to tell my mother what was going on. I’d already confided in Romy the night before, but I knew that telling my mom was going to be harder—for both of us. I didn’t want her sympathy, because I still didn’t want to believe this was happening to me. I also knew she’d be upset, and I didn’t want to have to deal with her emotions when I didn’t know how to deal with my own.

  When I finally told her, she took a deep breath and sighed, then gave me a look that seemed to be a combination of half worried and half sad. She said nothing. I was shocked by her silence, but I suppose I shouldn’t have been. When my mother didn’t know what to say, she said nothing, and this was clearly one of those times. She tried to put her arms around me, but I pushed her away. I didn’t want sympathy and I didn’t want anyone to touch me.

  Word began to spread, and of course my friends found out. They tried to be there for me when they could, but they were at the theater all day and all night. Stacey bought me a teddy bear that she said had diabetes, too; Catherine called to see if I needed anything. I appreciated their concern, but there really wasn’t anything they could do. And I still didn’t want to talk about it, especially when they were calling during a five-minute break and I could hear music playing in the background for a rehearsal I wanted to be at more than anything.

  For my part, I was packing my things, booking a flight to L.A. and trying to stay focused on what I needed to do. In the midst of all this, I decided to call my aunt Rhonda. At the time, I’d been able to share my emotions with her in a way that I couldn’t with my mother. I hoped that as a counselor for people going through hardships, Rhonda would be able to counsel me, too.

  Instead of providing the comfort I was seeking, though, this is what she said: “I think you’re creating this because you want your father’s attention. He’s a doctor, so this is a good way to get it.” I appreciated her concern and her belief that I could get through the disease once I’d uncovered the unconscious thought pattern that had caused it, but her words only left me feeling angry and even more alone. The same belief system that had previously made me feel that I had control over a given situation—the conviction that I could change it—offered no solace now. In the midst of my shock, denial and overwhelming emotions, the notion that I had in any way contributed to my illness brought no sense of empowerment, only more devastation. I felt like the ultimate failure—spiritually, emotionally and physically.

  What I could see was that my stress, anxiety and lack of sleep, along with the physical demands of dancing so much, might have pushed my body to the point where, given some precipitating factor, such as a virus, it could no longer take the strain. And while I didn’t believe that I had created my illness in order to get my father’s attention, I knew that my caring and pragmatic cardiologist father would be able to help me now. I called him, explained what was going on and told him that I was coming home.

  My dad made an appointment for me with an internist who shared his suite of offices, and I went to see him the day after I arrived. The doctor knew I had just been diagnosed and probably assumed, because of my age and because my blood sugar levels were high, but nowhere near as high as would be expected with uncontrolled type 1 diabetes, that I had adult-onset, or type 2, diabetes. At the time it was not as common as it is now for an adult to be diagnosed with type 1 or for a child to have type 2, which is generally associated with lifestyle—being overweight and inactive. Type 1 diabetes is generally thought of as “child-hood” diabetes, which is usually associated with the image of a slender young child giving herself insulin injections. Type 1 diabetes is caused by an antibody—part of the body’s immune system that makes a mistake and starts attacking the insulin-producing cells, the beta cells, in the pancreas. This is called an autoimmune process (auto = self and immune = infection-fighting system) and is not reversible. People who develop type 1 diabetes have to take insulin for life. Type 2 diabetes means that the body becomes resistant to the effects of insulin, and the body also stops making enough insulin. Most people who get this type of diabetes are inactive and overweight. The treatment starts with weight loss and exercise, then goes to oral medications and may ultimately require insulin. Almost everyone who gets type 2 diabetes has a family history of diabetes, which is much rarer in type 1 diabetes. Nowadays, we know that people can get either type of diabetes at any age, but a slender, athletic person in their twenties almost certainly has type 1 diabetes and requires insulin injections, not pills, for treatment.

  At the time, however, it was generally assumed that a diagnosis of diabetes in an adult indicated type 2. This doctor’s treatment of me wasn’t very different from that of the one I’d seen in New York. He checked my blood sugar level but did very little else. He did not, for example, do a test to determine how much, if any, insulin my pancreas was producing. He spent almost no time talking to me, and my brain was so foggy that I didn’t have the wherewithal to ask any questions. What he did do was to prescribe an oral medication that he said would lower my blood sugar levels. As it turned out, the medication was intended for people with type 2 diabetes to cause their pancreas to increase its insulin production; but in type 1 diabetes it can actually be dangerous because it can exhaust the pancreas entirely. And, finally,
he sent me to a nutritionist next door, who was now the third person not to explain what was happening to me or why. Instead of teaching me the intricacies of the effects of food on blood sugar levels, and how I could balance food, activity and blood sugars, she just gave me a general list of foods and their carbohydrate content and told me what I could or couldn’t eat.

  I understood that the purpose of the list was to accommodate people’s cravings, and I knew about cravings. Even though I’d gotten over my Entenmann’s doughnut habit, I was still an emotional eater and now I was also ravenous because my blood sugars were so high. There were tons of sugar in my bloodstream but it wasn’t going into my cells, which needed fuel. So I was ravenously hungry. I was literally starving and didn’t know it. But I didn’t want to give into my emotional and physiological impulses. I didn’t want to know how to accommodate my diabetes. I wanted to know how to cure it.

  The doctor had said that I needed to check my blood sugar regularly, so Dad took me to a diabetes center where we bought a home blood glucose monitor. The people at the center explained how I was supposed to use it. These days, blood sugar readings can be completed in a matter of seconds with a lot less blood, but at the time I was diagnosed the process took much longer and was much more complicated. First I was to turn on the battery-operated monitor, then I was supposed to prick my finger with a sharp device that drew a large droplet of blood. I was to then transfer the blood to a small plastic strip and wait sixty seconds before wiping the blood off the strip with a cotton ball. Lastly, I was to insert the strip into the monitor and wait another sixty seconds for the reading. The whole thing took two minutes, and I was supposed to be doing this several times a day. It seemed incredibly daunting, and what concerned me most was that I was so spacey I didn’t know how I was ever going to remember all those steps and details on my own.